by Emma Dawn
My heart sank. Suddenly I knew why my bestie Ally had done what she had in giving up her connection to the human world and why she’d tried so hard to save the five men she’d been given. The thought of Lyric, Havoc, and the other Alphas being culled made me physically sick to my stomach.
A sense of responsibility flooded me. “That’s terrible, and as long as I am here, it ain’t going to happen.” I paused, my mind kicking into high gear as I tried to formulate a plan. “Why not just get rid of Raider? Kick him out?”
Or kill him. That whisper was not my own. It belonged to the large furred animal inside me I chose to ignore.
Lyric shook his head. “Can’t prove he’s helping the Bloodfire pack. And in the pack, justice is the law.” He let out a slow gust of air and his nostrils flared as he took a big breath in. “Shit, Wilder is back already.”
I rolled to see my bodyguard bringing us a basket of food. He set it down and moved to step back. I motioned at him. “Stay to eat. You’ve got to be hungry too.”
I wrapped one of the furs around my shoulders and scooted toward the basket, suddenly ravenous, my belly rolling and growling.
The scents of cooked chicken, apple pie, cheese, fresh bread, and something else I couldn’t identify tickled at my nose. I took a deep breath, trying to pinpoint it.
“What is that last thing I’m smelling?”
Both men laughed. Wilder spoke first. “I don’t know what all you are smelling, so how can I tell you what the last thing is?”
“Chicken, apple pie, cheese, bread and something else, something that is meat.” I flicked my eyes up to his and caught the last of a smile on his face. Fuck me sideways, he was as gorgeous as the rest and that wolf inside me perked up every time I looked at him.
He dug into the basket and held a strip of dried jerky out to me. “Venison. Deer meat.” He was careful not to let our fingers touch, and I tried not to take offense.
I took the meat and bit into it, tearing at the jerky. Saliva flooded my mouth as the flavor of the venison hit my tongue. “This is amazing. Was it cured with honey?”
“Coated in a bit of honey to help with the curing, yes.” Wilder sat back and handed some of the jerky to a grumbling Lyric.
There was the faintest smell of something sharp and tangy on the air and my brain interpreted it as jealousy. Not a lot, but it was there.
I reached back with my free hand and touched his knee. “Listen, if I ask lots of questions, Wilder can answer some of them, which frees you to eat and regain your strength.”
Wilder ducked his head and let out a low laugh. “By the sounds of things, she’s right. That session alone covered two hours.”
I choked on the bite I’d just swallowed. “Two hours?”
Wilder nodded. “Time can pass in weird ways here in the Haven. But more likely it’s because you all were just too tangled up in each other to notice the stars moving.”
I had a sudden idea. “Wilder, what can you tell me about Lyric?”
This time it was Lyric doing the choking on his food. Wilder leaned back on one elbow and picked at the chicken with his other hand.
“He’s an Alpha; he’s grumpy in the morning until he’s had his coffee; he’s never been in love according to him; and he can be a bit antisocial. We don’t always get along, him and I, but I like him for the most part.” Wilder tipped his head, those dark eyes on mine.
I glanced at Lyric who was somewhat red in the face. “Accurate?”
“The antisocial one,” Lyric grumbled, but there was a hint of humor in his voice and the tang of jealousy was gone. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, my friend.”
Wilder shrugged. “I’m not the one on display for our new Alpha to test drive.”
My guts clenched on his words. A test drive.
Whore. That word pinged inside my head before I could catch it.
I stood with the fur wrapped around me and strode from the two men.
“Cassandra.” Lyric scrambled to catch up to me.
I shook my head and called back. “No, I need a minute to myself.”
The two of them argued in low tones behind me, and I kept moving until I was out of the amphitheater and in the forest proper. The cold snow under my bare feet was a balm to the heat coursing through me. Embarrassment at the front, fear close behind, and confusion pooled in there with the other two just to make it interesting.
A test drive. A whore. What was it about those words that had set me off? I found a thick tree trunk wide enough that if I put my back to it and slid down it was almost like I was being held. I needed to be alone for a few minutes, to get my bearings back. I needed to make sure I wasn’t being pulled into this harem of wolves without my actual wanting of it. That all the instincts and desire were truly my own, and not some concoction or spell. I put a hand to my head and shifted the fur so it was up around my neck, shielding me from the wind as I dug deeply into my own mind.
My ears caught the crunch of feet on the snow and I lifted only my eyes. I expected Lyric, but it was Wilder who stood in front of me.
“I want to be alone for a few minutes,” I repeated.
“Not before I apologize,” he said. “I shouldn’t have been so flippant about this process. Lyric is a good man, and he would make an excellent mate for you. It’s obvious you do well together between the furs, as it were.” He gave me a wry grin but I didn’t respond.
He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets. “What can I say to make this better?”
I clutched at the furs a little tighter. “Nothing. You spoke the truth and it hurt me, and now I have to figure out how to handle that hurt.” I wrapped my arms around my knees. Naked under a fur, against a tree in the middle of the forest. I did not feel strong or anything like an Alpha right then, nor did I feel all that good about the process anymore. Was I just a whore? Or something more than that? The very word made me question my choice to stay.
“I don’t want to force anyone to my bed, Wilder. I don’t want them doing this because they think they have to, and I’m sick to my stomach with the thought of it.” And that included me being forced by something I didn’t understand.
The words slid from me because I knew even as I spoke, he wouldn’t betray my confidence. “That’s wrong on so many levels.”
He crouched in front of me, but did not reach out. “They all want you, Cassie. You can smell it on them if you let yourself get close enough. And you don’t have to be with anyone you don’t want to. Not even Raider.”
The wind shifted and hit him in the back, blowing his scent right to my nose. A musky vanilla flavor that did bad things low in my body, that made me imagine him under me with his hands on my hips as I rode him and brought us both to a climax.
He stood abruptly and turned so his broad back was to me. He spoke over his shoulder. “I’ll give you the time you want. But don’t waste too much out here. Lyric will only wait so long before he comes looking.”
I watched him stride back the way he’d come, the sound under his feet a bare whisper this time. I bit my lower lip. I could really use a chat with Ally right then. She’d been through this. How the hell had she managed to deal with sharing her body with more than one man?
Worse, what happened if I fell in love with more than one of them?
Chapter 7
I sat there against the tree, letting the cold air keep my mind clear of the fog of lust that had overcome what I had thought were my better senses. Except my better senses weren’t telling me to run away from the pack, or the men, or even this place I was in right then. My better senses were in fact saying that this was the place I belonged.
The furred body inside of me was content in a way it—she—had never been. I didn’t feel the need to throw myself out of a plane, or go into another karate competition, or do anything that normally would be pulling at me after only a few short days of quiet.
Instead, I felt only a need to stay where I was and see this through.
These men, these
werewolves and this pack were mine to care for, if I was strong enough to stand with them. I rubbed at the back of my neck and stood, letting the fur fall behind me.
I might be wrong, but no one would be able to say I was indecisive.
With deliberate steps, I made my way back to the amphitheater to where Lyric paced, his pants back on but nothing else. His broad back, narrow hips, and long legs called to me as much as his gentle nature and sweet sense of humor.
Wilder leaned against the far side and he saw me before Lyric did. His dark eyes widened, and then a slow grin slid over his face and he blew me a kiss, the cheeky bastard.
Lyric turned as the wind shifted, taking my scent to him. But he didn’t rush to me. He was no beta, but neither was I, as I was learning.
“I know we talked before about wanting, but I need to know, Lyric. I . . . I’m afraid this is all something you are being forced to do and that kills something inside of me.”
He took a step, then another and another until his hands were on my shoulders. “Cassandra, you can’t make Alphas do something they don’t want to. None of us would bed you if it wasn’t something we truly wanted. Wilder said he told you how to smell for it?”
That brought a flush of heat to my face, mostly because I was embarrassed that not only had I smelled Wilder’s desire, but my body had reacted to it.
“Yes. He did.”
Lyric tugged me into his arms, his heat and strength surrounding me. “What do you smell?”
I drew in a deep breath. “Cedar bark.”
“That would be me, wanting you. You only catch a whiff of a specific smell if that person desires you. It’s how you learn to identify them.” He kissed me gently. “Just like I can smell you right now, wanting me.”
I blinked up at him. “What do I smell like?”
“Wisteria at night in the summer when the air is just cooling down and the sun is setting and you think that time has stopped.” His blue eyes softened. “You smell like you, and love and all sorts of desires that I’ve yet to find out about.”
I blushed under the pretty words. “That was a lot more poetic than my ‘you smell like a tree.’”
He laughed and the music swelled upward around us once more, catching me off guard, making me stumble into his arms. I grinned up at him. “I don’t think your night is up yet.”
He grinned right back. “Thank God.”
*_*_*_*
The morning sun peeked through the amphitheater and the rays lit across my face, warming my skin. I snuggled deeper into the furs, my limbs a deliciously languid liquid that could only come from a night of epic fucking that left me with little sleep and some damn amazing memories. I grinned with my eyes still closed and reached for Lyric.
“He’s already off on his rounds,” Wilder said. “He asked me to give you this.”
My eyes snapped open and I blinked up to see my bodyguard standing over me. He raised an eyebrow and handed me a sheet of paper.
Music notes were scattered over the page, like some sort of secret code, and the strangest of things was that I could indeed read it.
Thank you, Cassandra, for helping me find the most beautiful music. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay, and I didn’t want to wake you. Call on me if you have need.
Wilder cleared his throat. “I’m to take you around the edge of the pack territory and help you get a feel for the lay of the land. If you want.”
I sat up, clutching the furs to me. “And do I get to have clothes for this walk?” Mine were conspicuously missing.
He tossed me a stack of clothes. Jeans, a thick sweater and long coat that when I slipped it on landed at my knees. A pair of white fur-lined boots that laced up to my knees. I shoved my foot into the first one and all but purred.
“Rabbit fur,” Wilder said before I could ask what it was. “Softest stuff we have around here and plenty warm enough.”
I grimaced thinking of the tiny bunnies that had given up their fur for my boots. Wilder dropped to one knee and began to lace up the boots for me, surprising me. “Rabbits are a staple around here, and we don’t like to waste anything.”
My brain seemed to stutter over what he was saying. “You eat them?”
“What you thought was chicken last night was a rabbit.” He flashed a grin at me and then looked back to the laces on my boots. His fingers made deft work of them. “I didn’t tell you because a lot of people struggle with their first bite of rabbit, thinking of Bugs Bunny.”
“It smelled like chicken to me,” I said, trying to remember the taste of the meat. There had been nothing that made me think it was anything but chicken.
Wilder stood and nodded. “It won’t now that you know. Your brain told you it was chicken because you had no other frame to understand what it was. Your senses will continue to heighten and you’ll be able to tell the subtle differences.”
I grimaced again even though my saliva glands once more flooded my mouth with the thought of the meat. I bent over the basket and pulled out the last bits of bread and cheese, handing some to Wilder.
“Okay, enough talk about rabbits. Show me around this place.” I popped cheese into my mouth and waved at him to get going.
He walked away from me, expecting me to follow. Which I did, and that gave me a nice view of his back end, a very nice view indeed. Wide shoulders, narrow waist and hips, thicker legs well-muscled and strong. He wasn’t as tall as Lyric, but not many men would be. I shook my head, shocked at how quickly I was letting the image of one man replace another.
Lyric had been special, and I knew anyone who came after him would have a hard time making me forget the music only he could play on my heart and soul.
We walked through the woods, taking narrow paths that were hard to see until you were on them, and yet they were as familiar to me as if I’d been running on them my whole life.
Wilder glanced back often to make sure I was still following, even though I had no doubt he could hear me. Or maybe even smell me.
“When were you bitten?” His question caught me off guard and I slowed my feet. I chewed the last of my breakfast and swallowed before I answered.
“I was nine.” The memory had always seemed distant to me, like a dream I barely remembered. But here in this place, the memory came into sharper focus as if every detail revealed itself to me. “We were camping, my family and me. My two brothers and Dad were fishing on the lake, and my mom fell asleep on the beach sun tanning.” The scene came clearer in my mind as I spoke.
The crystal-bright water, the sound of the waves on the sandy beach, the call of the birds in the forest behind us. I swallowed hard, feeling the same sensation as that day, of being watched. “There was someone in the woods behind us, and . . . they, no it was a he, waved at me.”
“Was it a man?” Wilder slowed so I could step up beside him now that the path was wider.
“I think so. But at the time, it was just a person, a figure that beckoned to me. I left the beach, still in nothing but my bathing suit and shorts, flip-flops, and a sun hat.” I frowned. “So, stupid of me, now that I look back.”
Wilder pursed his lips. “Not really. There may have been a bit of compulsion on the caller’s part. Sometimes there is a human we know is meant to be with us and we can’t help ourselves not to draw them in. Those are the ones that survive the bite. Though rarely do we bite anyone as young as nine.”
I frowned at my feet. “Was a law broken then to bite me?”
He shook his head. “No. Just an unspoken rule we try to follow. Children have an easier time with the change, but the reality is it takes them away from their family, which isn’t right. If they lost control with their parents and bit one of them, there is a good chance they could die.”
“Or in my case, the change never happens.” I snorted. “I mean, that is weird, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “I’m not the one to ask. Ralph handles that sort of stuff.”
I took a step and my hand brushed against his.
The contact an
d sensation were instant. A rush of flickering heat raced up my arm and straight through my body, lighting every pleasure center I had. I couldn’t catch the whispered moan that slipped through my lips, nor did I miss the intake of breath through Wilder.
He backed away from me, his eyes wide and that same musky vanilla scent rolling off him to me as before. I shook my head. “Sorry?”
“My bad,” he said. “This next week you are going to be keyed up and tuned in to your hormones like you probably never will be again.”
I struggled to breathe around the images of tangled limbs and swollen lips that danced through the front of my brain. “What do you mean?”
He looked away. “You are going to be ready to jump anyone. Watch who you touch; keep it to the Alphas, or you may end up in bed with the wrong wolf.”
With those comforting words, he strode off, leaving me there shaking and for the first time afraid. Was he saying I wouldn’t be able to control myself, that I would end up fucking whatever man came my way?
Images of Raider in bed with me made my stomach roll with nausea.
I hurried to catch up to Wilder, to ask him, but he wouldn’t look at me and I didn’t dare grab him. Just in case he was right.
Not that I didn’t want him, but it was obvious the attraction wasn’t mutual.
So instead of talking, we walked around a portion of the territory. A few miles was my guess. After an hour of silence, I finally summed up the nerve to ask him a question, mostly sure it was a safe topic.
“You can shift into a wolf, like Havoc?”
He glanced at me. “Yes, we all can.”
I nodded. “I’ve never shifted. Does that matter if I never do?”
He stumbled to a stop and stared at me. “Never?”
I shook my head. “Like I said, does it matter?”
A frown creased his brow and his eyes went distant with his thoughts. “It could be. You will need to shift by the end of the week. It’s part of the ceremony of making you one of our pack. Your smell, the power in your voice as an Alpha is only part of it. You have to prove you are a werewolf through and through.”
